It's waterfall mania and elephant imagery all over Koh Chang -- Klong Plu, Koh Chang's showpiece

“In the past, things Chang never really did it for me.  The Thai market-leading beer, Chang Classic, tastes bitter and artificial. In university, my lab partner Teddy Chang routinely stole my lab notes and claimed them as his own.  The Chang Naga tribe in India cooked some really horrible curries.  And as a kid, I remember reading about the Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker who had a fused liver.  How depressing!  Things Chang all chang-ed after I got to Koh Chang.  Chang-ing could be fun for a change.”  Doug Knell, Doug’s Republic

In Thai, the word chang means elephant.  Because the most popular beer in Thailand is also called Chang, and visitors see the English word often as a result, it’s normal to mispronounce.   I tend to pronounce chang as if it rhymes with hang, bang, or fang.  Actually, it’s pronounced as if it rhymes with bong, thong, and wrong, three things partying tourists to Koh Chang may encounter if they go to the earthier pickup bars.  

Koh Chang is Thailand’s third largest island.  [For fact seekers, Phuket is the largest, and Koh Samui is the second largest, just 10 sq km bigger than Koh Chang]   Located in Trat province in eastern Thailand, just an hour’s drive from the Cambodian border, the island just doesn’t register on peoples’ minds as an idyllic paradise, not in the way Samui and Phuket do.  Koh Samui and Phuket have been open a lot longer for tourism.  Koh Chang saw a smattering of roughhewn backpackers in the 1990′s.   A friend of mine from Washington, Burma Mike, visited in 1991 and seduced backpacker virgins on virgin beaches.  My brother went in 1992.  There were no roads and electricity was limited.  Sounds much like Koh Tao did when I first visited in ’94.  The masses stayed away back then. 

Koh Chang has a selling point the other islands don’t, and that is its proximity to Bangkok.  Koh Samui is 775 km away from the Kok and involves a long bus ride to Suratthani and then a ferry.  Or a 12-hour train ride and then a ferry. Or a relatively expensive plane fare on Bangkok Airways, the only airline which makes the fight and owns the airport in Samui.   Phuket is even further.  Over 850 km from the Kok, although low cost airlines ply this route. 

[Click the picture to read the rest of this brilliantly fascinating article]]